Nuclear plant operations: The U.S. experience
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
Over the past 20 years, electricity has taken on an increasingly important role in the U.S. energy mix and an increasing fraction of that electricity has been generated by nuclear power plants. However, producing electricity with nuclear energy is not an end in itself for electric utilities. Nuclear power is attractive only in so far as it is a safe and economical means of producing electricity. Safety has been and will remain a priority with the nuclear industry-it`s part of the culture. However, during the 1980`s, the economy of nuclear power was called into question. Nuclear production costs (operations, maintenance and fuel) grew at a rate greater than inflation, led by the costs of operations and maintenance. The production costs peaked in 1987 at which time several factors responding to competition from other forms of generation combined to bring them down. The decline in costs is continuing, yielding the positive experience discussed in this paper. 1 ref., 11 figs.
- OSTI ID:
- 416379
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960730-; TRN: 96:006486-0015
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 5. world congress of chemical engineering, San Diego, CA (United States), 14-18 Jul 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of The 5th World Congress of chemical engineering: Technologies critical to a changing World. Volume II: Agriculture, food biotechnology biomedical electric power process safety; PB: 1140 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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